Green groups: Where does OFA stand on Keystone?

President Obama has said repeatedly that he doesn’t have a stance on Keystone yet. | AP Photo

They’re pointing to talking points OFA has handed out to supporters and people who attend its events in which the group says that “if people believe that Keystone XL is the primary fight to be engaged in, there are many groups who have taken a position, and we are happy to make suggestions about who volunteers might work with on that or other issues.”

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“Since climate change is such a huge issue for the president’s base, they’re not going to be able to dance around that,” she said.

Kessler said OFA could use its millions of members — and connections to Obama — to drive the conversation around environmental issues toward action.

Specifically, Kessler said OFA could work to get the president to reject the pipeline, enact carbon regulations and help close coal plants. It should also push Obama to support a moratorium on fracking until government reviews on the practice are complete and work to develop a national energy policy that weans the U.S. off fossil fuels.

Environmentalists are also complaining that Keystone proponents have access to Obama and the White House.

They pointed to recent news stories about Obama meeting with energy CEOs and expressed consternation at Obama’s speech Friday at Ellicott Dredges in Baltimore, a day after the company’s CEO testified before a House Small Business subcommittee on the benefits of Keystone.

Bold Nebraska said it had invited Obama to meet with ranchers and farmers for a “beer and beef summit” to discuss the pipeline, but the White House declined. The group renewed its invitation Friday.

The White House did not respond to requests for comment for this story.

Still, there’s evidence that green voices haven’t been completely shut out from the White House. For example, Obama attended a fundraising event in California last month at the home of billionaire environmentalist and Keystone opponent Tom Steyer, even though the president avoided publicly mentioning the pipeline.

But that’s different from meeting with the people affected by Keystone, Kleeb said.

“We don’t want access to a fundraiser, and we don’t live to rub elbows with the president,” she said. “What we want the president to do is to come look at the families in the eye, those folks who would be living with the pipeline.”